Auto Racing

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Matt Kenseth didn't agonize over one of the most important decisions of his life last spring. He didn't lose a wink at night and didn't have to call in an army of consultants.

Sometime during the Coca-Cola 600 week in May, Kenseth took a drive over to the Joe Gibbs Racing shop in Huntersville, N.C., to meet with Gibbs and his son J.D. about a potential move there.

A few hours later, Kenseth - who had never driven for anyone other than Jack Roush at the Cup level in 13 seasons - was a man on the move.

"I just drove away from there and I knew," he said during the recent NASCAR pre-season media tour. "I was 100 percent sure it was the right place for me. It was the right team for me, sponsor for me, organization for me, timing for me.

"I just knew 100 percent. I don't know how else to explain it."

Things are a bit fuzzy as to how it all unraveled between Kenseth and Roush. But it seems like a case of Roush Fenway Racing preferring to promote a younger and lesser-priced driver in Ricky Stenhouse Jr., leaving Kenseth as the odd man out with his expiring contract.

As speculation strongly pointed to JGR, the move finally became official last September.

"We learned a long time ago unless you have the right guy behind the wheel you're wasting your time," J.D Gibbs, the JGR president, said at the time. "Matt is the guy for us."

The Gibbs Gang snagged the best free agent of the NASCAR silly season. Kenseth won 24 races, two Daytona 500s and the 2003 Cup championship under Roush. He finished seventh in the Chase standings in 2012.

The breakup sent a buzz through the NASCAR Nation last year. Kenseth had been with Roush Racing since 2000, the second-longest owner-driver relationship in the garage (Jeff Gordon has been with Hendrick Motorsports since 1993).

"It doesn't change the job," Kenseth said. "It's something I've dealt with the whole time I've raced. Life changes constantly. At least for me it does.

"Right now I don't think I could be in a better place personally or professionally. I feel it's the running NASCAR joke. Everybody says they are living the dream but today I really feel I am."

Kenseth, 40, seems to fit right in with a stacked lineup of perennial Chase qualifiers in Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch. They seemed to have an instant rapport going during the media tour media conference in which they all took light-hearted jabs at each other.

The gleeful spirit continued when J.D. introduced a "Gangnam Style" video featuring Busch and Hamlin - and even the elder Gibbs, the 72-year-old Pro Football Hall of Famer for his Redskins coaching success - showing off their dance moves.

It might have been the strangest moment of the media tour, and also the funniest.

"I obviously signed my contract before I saw this," Kenseth said.

Racing the stars

So you think you can outrun Jimmie Johnson, Michael Waltrip, Kasey Kahne and Aric Almirola?

You will get the chance on Sunday, Feb. 17, just hours before drivers attempt to qualify for the two top starting spots in the Daytona 500.

No need to bring your stock car to this event. Just sneakers.

The Central Florida Sports Commission and Daytona International Speedway, in partnership with Volusia County, will host the Daytona Beach Half Marathon, starting at 6:30 a.m. This will be the first time that the race will be staged during Budweiser Speedweeks.

Local runners will be joined by a handful of NASCAR drivers who like to chase speed by means other than racing a car.

"My wife and I really like to run and stay fit," Almirola said. "Sammy Johns, our director of competition at Richard Petty Motorsports, is really into running, triathlons and being competitive. So we all decided this was a perfect run to do. It's during Speedweeks, it's going to get the race fans involved and it just seems like a lot of fun."

The race will start on pit road at Daytona International Speedway and at Gatorade Victory Lane.

NASCAR president Mike Helton announced new terms of engagement for "start-and-park" teams that clutter the starting grid every week. The sport will reallocate prize money from the last five spots in the field, making it less appealing to run a few laps and then drop out of a race.

"We moved prize money higher in the purse so if someone's intent is solely to run a lap or two and park, the revenue stream shrinks," Helton said during an Autoweek panel discussion in Detroit on Tuesday.

Each position from 43rd through 39th will receive $4,000 less for each position in the official finish of a race. A driver finishing 39th will receive $4,000 less than the 38th-place driver, and so forth. Race purses will not be reduced, only reallocated.

Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman Bruton Smith and Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage recently labeled the start-and-park teams a disgrace. They have a lot of company, including me, regarding those sentiments.

"It's a joke for the race fans," Smith said during the Sprint NASCAR media tour.

Although Hendrick is a connoisseur of classic cars, he had no interest bidding on the original Batmobile from 1966, which sold for $4.2 million at last month's Barrett-Jackson Collectible Car Auction in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"Hell no, no sir," Hendrick told PRN Garage Pass. "What would I want with the Batmobile? And I'm a Batman fan but I wouldn't know what to do with that car. . . . I wouldn't have hauled that thing home if they gave it to me!"

Hendrick did buy several other vehicles and spent well over $1 million at the event. He uses some of the cars for business or his personal collection, and others to benefit assorted charities.

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